Ah, that would work. Combustion did use to be our 6th link in the Incinerate Setup - I guess it got replaced with Fortify in this one. So you would have to pass up Fortify or Bone Offering to get that, your choice! (Bone Offering is just spell block + life gain on block, so its not too important since Duskdawn itself already supplies 70% base - then we get a little extra from nodes elsehwere.
RE: Judgement - yes, that's the 'combo' (https://streamable.com/8pgt7g) but it's too much effort to do.. manually, let's say. It was more of an experiment. The Duration modifier stays even if you swap out the staff again, so it's 'yes' to both your questions.
Yeah, I got my staff 6-linked so I added WoC and will play with that and see how ST DPS feels. If feels better (I imagine it will with the exposure) I probably won't drop anything and move combustion over. That's neat with the witchhunters. It's something else I'll look into if boss DPS feels awkward. There are times I really feel the S-Tier bossing so I think when it's not clicking I'm just doing something wrong and will need to play around with it.
Thank you for the responses and the build!
Haha yeah, it's definitely the double-Desecrate brand issue. A quick resolution is to quickly cast 3 VD brands - this deletes the oldest Brand which is Desecrate and starts the damage up again. It's the wonky part of the build! But yeah, it goes away over time.
I tried mapping with Swiftbrand - ironically, it makes mapping feel GREAT (as it just floods the screen with balls) but somehow the boss DPS seems to have suffered (I did 4 guardians and a Shaper to test this). I'll trial it again for about a dozen more maps and see if I can identify why the boss damage feels weirdly undercut.
EDIT: Oh duh, I only put Swiftbrand on VD - forgot to put it on Desecrate. Testing again...
While playing around with Witchhunter it feels like using brandsurge more or less does the same damage as I would normally do with my brands but over a much faster duration and helps ramp it up faster. However, I really like using Witchunter to place the brands and swap back just to get the extra seconds of not having to update the brands. Doesn't really change DPS I feel but gives me more free time to be moving around. Only content I haven't cleared yet with the build now is The Feared. Made my first attempt today and got 2 bosses down but not used to the encounter and kept messing up. Got Maven down on second try though and had her at like 10% going in blind. Very solid build so far. I imagine with flask or a hypo helm everything will melt almost instantly
While playing around with Witchhunter it feels like using brandsurge more or less does the same damage as I would normally do with my brands but over a much faster duration and helps ramp it up faster. However, I really like using Witchunter to place the brands and swap back just to get the extra seconds of not having to update the brands. Doesn't really change DPS I feel but gives me more free time to be moving around. Only content I haven't cleared yet with the build now is The Feared. Made my first attempt today and got 2 bosses down but not used to the encounter and kept messing up. Got Maven down on second try though and had her at like 10% going in blind. Very solid build so far. I imagine with flask or a hypo helm everything will melt almost instantly
Haha glad you enjoy it! Actually, thanks for recommending Swiftbrand, I've never tried it this late in the gear stage and it actually feels pretty great for regular mapping.
Sirus was a right PITA because the brands last only like 3 seconds, after which you have to find him again to reapply) as opposed to the brands continuing to DPS him from across the arena) but regular Guardians/Conqs and mapping felt hilariously smooth.
While playing around with Witchhunter it feels like using brandsurge more or less does the same damage as I would normally do with my brands but over a much faster duration and helps ramp it up faster. However, I really like using Witchunter to place the brands and swap back just to get the extra seconds of not having to update the brands. Doesn't really change DPS I feel but gives me more free time to be moving around. Only content I haven't cleared yet with the build now is The Feared. Made my first attempt today and got 2 bosses down but not used to the encounter and kept messing up. Got Maven down on second try though and had her at like 10% going in blind. Very solid build so far. I imagine with flask or a hypo helm everything will melt almost instantly
Haha glad you enjoy it! Actually, thanks for recommending Swiftbrand, I've never tried it this late in the gear stage and it actually feels pretty great for regular mapping.
Sirus was a right PITA because the brands last only like 3 seconds, after which you have to find him again to reapply) as opposed to the brands continuing to DPS him from across the arena) but regular Guardians/Conqs and mapping felt hilariously smooth.
Nice, have you considered divergent swiftbrand too? I played a penance/storm brand build last league and tried that out. It gets some insane activation rate in the last little bit. I'm not sure if there's enough time to really do everything but I imagine a divergent swiftbrand + brandsurge would probably break something or hit some kind of cap in terms of cast speed. In PoB with just divergent Swiftbrand the cast speed is around 7.87 and I'm not sure how to apply brandsurge to it. But It would only last like half a second or so but could make for some silly explosions.
I also feel like using the witchhunter duration snapshot along with swiftbrand might make some things feel better on Sirus. More damage per cast and it might be enough to phase/kill him before he can teleport as often
While playing around with Witchhunter it feels like using brandsurge more or less does the same damage as I would normally do with my brands but over a much faster duration and helps ramp it up faster. However, I really like using Witchunter to place the brands and swap back just to get the extra seconds of not having to update the brands. Doesn't really change DPS I feel but gives me more free time to be moving around. Only content I haven't cleared yet with the build now is The Feared. Made my first attempt today and got 2 bosses down but not used to the encounter and kept messing up. Got Maven down on second try though and had her at like 10% going in blind. Very solid build so far. I imagine with flask or a hypo helm everything will melt almost instantly
Haha glad you enjoy it! Actually, thanks for recommending Swiftbrand, I've never tried it this late in the gear stage and it actually feels pretty great for regular mapping.
Sirus was a right PITA because the brands last only like 3 seconds, after which you have to find him again to reapply) as opposed to the brands continuing to DPS him from across the arena) but regular Guardians/Conqs and mapping felt hilariously smooth.
Nice, have you considered divergent swiftbrand too? I played a penance/storm brand build last league and tried that out. It gets some insane activation rate in the last little bit. I'm not sure if there's enough time to really do everything but I imagine a divergent swiftbrand + brandsurge would probably break something or hit some kind of cap in terms of cast speed. In PoB with just divergent Swiftbrand the cast speed is around 7.87 and I'm not sure how to apply brandsurge to it. But It would only last like half a second or so but could make for some silly explosions.
I also feel like using the witchhunter duration snapshot along with swiftbrand might make some things feel better on Sirus. More damage per cast and it might be enough to phase/kill him before he can teleport as often
I did the math and the diminishing returns on the "more activation speed" (considering Swiftbrand already has it) is bad against the opp cost of slightly more brand uptime that Anomalous gives (65% less --> 45% less attached duration).
I.E. the extra ticks that are squeezed into the last 25% (0.7 sec - so about 5 more bursts left, put in 25% more (190/165) speed = 15% - that's... that might not even give one more activations at max ramp per 2.8second window).
Compare this to Anomalous giving another ~ 0.2 second uptime which guarantees 1 or 2 ticks - that seems far more reliable to me.
The issue is that Arcanist Brand really has a terrible base duration (lowest of all the brands) so Swiftbrand is a massive QoL tradeoff compared to brands that last twice as long but deliver similar DPS. It is still a way more fun way to play the build though, kudos.
Just wanted to chime in and say the build has probably been on of my favorites in a long time. Very strong, decent mapper and great bosser. Most importantly pretty unique. I love doing off meta builds and this was a great one
Have easily killed maven and sirus aw9 deathless. Only annoying thing is specters die a lot so have to resummon between maps. Thats just a product of not really investing in them and can be fixed if you really want to.
Couldn't get the god tier helm but settled on this and dropped spider for FPS fixes.
Fantastic build. Will do again in the future!
Last edited by labelbuddy#2964 on May 22, 2021, 9:29:48 PM
Just wanted to chime in and say the build has probably been on of my favorites in a long time. Very strong, decent mapper and great bosser. Most importantly pretty unique. I love doing off meta builds and this was a great one
Have easily killed maven and sirus aw9 deathless. Only annoying thing is specters die a lot so have to resummon between maps. Thats just a product of not really investing in them and can be fixed if you really want to.
Couldn't get the god tier helm but settled on this and dropped spider for FPS fixes.
Fantastic build. Will do again in the future!
Woah! Haha, really glad you found it a worthwhile build :) Yes, darnit, I really miss Crushclaws being semi-immortal, these new (or old) ones really kick it way more often especially in Ultimatums.
Would you mind if I asked ye a couple of questions for research's sake?
1) Did dropping Spider help out massively with FPS? I suppose I could put in Zealotry to make up for some of the DPS loss.
2) Any chance you could try dropping Combustion for Anamalous Swiftbrand and seeing if you like the build any better? Thanks to sneekxy, I actually tried it late league (discarded it in early stages of build before) and it seems like quite a nice QOL boost because packs die really fast, allowing you to zoom more. Regular map bosses also croak a lot faster. (I would not use it for Sirus/Maven though, the uptime becomes abysmal).
Woah! Haha, really glad you found it a worthwhile build :) Yes, darnit, I really miss Crushclaws being semi-immortal, these new (or old) ones really kick it way more often especially in Ultimatums.
Would you mind if I asked ye a couple of questions for research's sake?
1) Did dropping Spider help out massively with FPS? I suppose I could put in Zealotry to make up for some of the DPS loss.
2) Any chance you could try dropping Combustion for Anamalous Swiftbrand and seeing if you like the build any better? Thanks to sneekxy, I actually tried it late league (discarded it in early stages of build before) and it seems like quite a nice QOL boost because packs die really fast, allowing you to zoom more. Regular map bosses also croak a lot faster. (I would not use it for Sirus/Maven though, the uptime becomes abysmal).
Uh i mean over all the FPS is still in the i'm gonna murder your GPU tier. Spider has been a notoriously bad FPS skill for awhile. I'm sure spider is technically more damage, as bottled faith and GG helm would get you close to crit cap. Being that i'm missing 2% on helm i find zeal still helps. Plus it opened up some watcher eye options to make up for the dmg drop of spider, if i wanted to go that route.
Plus i hit the enchant on the helm, so why not?
That being said, Still deathless aw9 sirus and maven, so is it really an issue? :shrug: I grabbed the anom towards then end just for the multi on it.
Perfect world, spider is still best imo.
I tried swiftbrand for mapping, and just not my style. Having to recast the brands more is kinda lame. Specially for things like ulti, where cycloning is safer than just running (i never got a phasing jewel, probably should lol, but slots are tight when you need CB and hinder)
For big bosses, the weapon swap brandsurge stuff takes care of the "down" time rather quickly so i think id just rather keep in combust.
Last edited by labelbuddy#2964 on May 26, 2021, 11:49:53 AM
(Standard player)
Hey, I've been meaning to try this build out since last league, even managed to snag some ele pen Shimmerons and an Acuity, only for that version of the build to get nerfed :(
I didn't have access to a six-link Duskdawn, but in PoB legacy Martyr gave more orb damage anyway.
Can someone check if I missed something major in the build? The damage is there, but I feel really squishy, like close to glass cannon assassin level of squishy. I think it's the lack of physical damage mitigation, but I can't figure out how to get more.
I know some gems aren't level 20 yet (discipline for example), but I feel even an extra 1k ES wouldn't change that much.
Character is BothBabiesAreAsleep
My resists are capped via the corrupted passives from Glorious Vanity
